A Year of Short Eids

Dubai Creek – Abra Station at the Old Souq, in Deira

It’s Raya again! Yippee, 3 days off. But it’s nothing to shout about compared to previous years. I remember I got a 5 day break in 2013 on Eid al-Adha! This year’s holidays are pathetic – 2 days off for Eid al-Fitr and 3 days off for Eid al-Adha (and that is including friggin weekends!) And this is a Muslim country!

Anyway, 3 days is better than none, so here’s to a Selamat Hari Raya Haji to my Malay friends, and a Eid Mubarak to all the Muslims out there!

I’m staying put in Dubai this Eid. (…Which wasn’t my original plan. I suggested flying to Moscow to the missus, but it was thrown out the window, without so much as a blink! …“You think money grows on trees?? We just came back from Europe!…” etc, etc, etc. OK honey, you’re right. And she is.)

Decided to put some photos of the more traditional parts of Dubai, to reflect the mood… (a trick I'm still using to keep the blog updated ahem)


A mosque at Deira, between the Gold Souq and the Spice Souq


Boarding an abra (water taxi), at the Bur Dubai Old Souq Abra Station






Crossing the Dubai Creek on a water taxi (abra) – we ride it for fun, after all it costs only 1 dirham per adult, one way, and it’s free for Justin!


See, Justin loves it. But only recommended for winter, unless your idea of fun is to sweat like a pig, and to breathe in the odours of a boatload full of sweating workers and diesel fumes.


The Old Souq in Bur Dubai


Grand Mosque, Bur Dubai


A newly completed mosque in Al Barsha, Dubai – one of the more unique looking mosques around in Dubai

Meet Up in Munich

At the Augustiner Keller, Munich, Germany

We finally met! Kim’s family and us. And of all places, it was in Munich, Germany! This will be the first time we meet Daniel and baby Jared, and it’ll be their first time meeting us, plus Kim’s first time seeing little Jayden. It didn’t go very smoothly at first, …thanks in part to me, …no, actually it’s all me haha. We invited Kim & family to meet us in Munich on the 20th of August, because we would be in Munich then. What I didn’t mention was that we’d be staying in Lienz, East Tirol, Austria on the night before. No, it’s not too far, only about 300km away. But that 300km included a mountain pass named the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, which passes through the highest mountain in Austria (Grossglockner) and its glacier. The estimated journey time calculated using Google Maps is err… 4 hours 30 mins (not too much, right). But that doesn’t take into account our frequent stops, for photos, washroom, diesel, snacks, etc… and the way I drive nowadays (i.e. slow, hey, my family’s in the car OK, and I’m not too familiar with Austrian and German road regulations! Besides… I’m not as young as I used to be, ahem). We tried our best to start early, but with 2 kids around, sometimes things don’t just go as planned. Nevertheless we started early (at least an hour earlier that on the other days of our trip, anyway). And by 5pm we reached our destination, or what I thought was our destination, but …it’s chock-a-block filled with residential flats, where’s the friggin hotel?

The friggin hotel, i.e. the Holiday Inn Express, Munich Airport, turned out to be another 45km+ away, in a godforsaken place named Öberding. (No one told me that the airport hotel address is NOT inside Munich! So the smartass GPS, …or more like the smartass who keyed the address into the GPS, i.e. yours truly, led us right smack into the city). Now, it’s evening rush hour time, and we’re right in the middle of it. But we finally made it to the hotel, at friggin 7pm. By then, Kim was brooding mad, having to wait for us for an entire day (their train reached Munich in the morning, and it’s another 2.5 hours by public transport from Munich to Öberding), and they’ve been stuck in the hotel, with nowhere to go (unless you wanna go to the airport, told ya it’s in a godforsaken place), till the time we arrived.

But all was forgiven when we met. And we had dinner, …umm, a not very 'halal' dinner (after all this is Germany, sorry dad, not a place for you), in Munich. It was raining dogs and cats, and we didn’t have time to do any last minute shopping in the city before we flew off the next day, :(. (I’ll make up for it honey, in one way or another, OK?)


Augustiner Keller (a beer cellar, crowded to the brim with patrons, even though it was a weekday and was raining heavily outside).




Justin with his uncle, planning out how to tackle the food – pork, duck, potato and cabbages – nothing much for you here, Dad, not the most ‘halal’ of places, I’d say. Oh yeah, you can have the beer hehe




Kimmikimkim, with baby Jared




The 2 babies, Jayden and Jared, at the Holiday Inn Express, Munich Airport


The Müllers, dad’s German, mom’s Malaysian and baby holds a NZ passport. They’re in Germany for a one month visit before returning to New Zealand


Finally, a family picture with Anu in it. The others were all taken by her, …I dunno what’s wrong with my photos, …must be the camera, yeah, blame it on the camera. At Munich Airport before we fly off

Then There Are Our Friends

How can I miss out our friends here in Dubai? Here’re some of them. Of course, there’re more, but …sometimes we just forget to snap photos. Moreover, these are photos from a year (or 2) back … photos which I have had the time to sift thru when free. The newer photos… there’re so many of ‘em I dunno where to start. Maybe next year, hehehe.

(Ahem, we’ve just returned from a hectic trip to Central Europe, and I’m all drained, and have a whole load of work to catch up… So, posts like this will have to do till, I recharge… Plus, I’m sick, down with the flu I think. Have been coughing for the past 1 month, …including during the holidays. Got worse since we came back. Delayed seeing a doctor coz I friggin lost the Health Insurance Card! Finally saw the doc last Thursday, and he said bronchitis. Now I’m most of the time drowsy from that killer cough syrup he gave me… 3 times a day he said, and what? No friggin leave? Note: In Dubai you have to pay AED 60 to get a sick leave certificate. So it’s pay up, or suck up and work. Hard luck!) Meanwhile… Enjoy the photos!


Friends from church, from left Pastor Alan, the pastor’s wife Estrella, Rose, Erwin


Pastor Alan and Estrella (he’s Indian and she’s Filipina, and the assistant pastor is Sri Lankan, this more or less sums up the demographics of the church). Pastor Alan is the cousin brother of my Malaysian ex-colleague, Joseph George

Church gathering at the Creek Park –

The Boys


The Girls


A ceremony celebrating the renewal of marriage vows of a Sri Lankan couple, Trivona & Maddock at our church


Justin with a church friend from the Philippines


Justin with another church friend… Trivona’s daughter. His friends seem to mostly be girls for some unknown reason…


Justin, in Pre-K, with his school mates, Reuben (left), Salama and Abdullah


Celebrating Justin’s Pre-K classmate Amira’s (the little girl in pink on the left) birthday


Amira’s Dubai house compound! Comes with tennis court, swimming pool, farm, horse stables, … Amira is half-Emirati and half-American


Another birthday party – Reuben’s, at a park in Mirdif, Dubai


At Uptown School’s International Day event, with Sri Lankan classmate Senan, and his sister


My work colleague Dong Weihong’s daughter Amy’s 5th birthday, at their home in International City. Dong Weihong & Li Lei, the girl’s parents, are on the immediate right and left respectively, of the shoe rack at the back. Another colleague, Jia Weimin is lighting the candles. The girl behind Jia is Zhang Xue (who works in the QAQC Dept in our office), and the bespectacled lady standing on the right is Li Jinsui, accountant, all from the office I’m working in.


Justin & his Foundation 2 classmates at a school concert in the Royal Dubai School

10 Years of Blogging

Yay! Looks like I’ve blogged for 10 straight years now! Not bad, a milestone of sorts for me. Longest time I’ve ever maintained a diary. Must thank the digital age for it. I’d never have gone far doing one on a traditional diary (tried many times, never succeeded).

For a celebration, I think I’ll put some photos of family gatherings here in Dubai. …Not that there’s much of it, since Dubai is seldom in any of our family’s list of places to visit… sigh!


We, at Creek Park, Dubai - 2013


With Hazel at Creek Park


Justin, with his granddad


Cactus at Creek Park, …just about the most exciting thing in Creek Park, in my opinion

OK, I’ll also take the opportunity to explain a few things about some common names I call myself or use in the digital world, for example, the title of the blog.

Cows, Pigs and Human Dung – the title is an extract from an earlier email to family and friends, on my initial shock of seeing the amazing variety of animals roaming freely on the streets and a humongous amount of umm …shit! in my daily site visits when I first started working in India. (“What animal made this?” I remember asking my Indian colleague. He looked down and said, “…animals like you and I”.) Like I always say, Incredible India! Love it and hate it. See my first picture post of India here.

Furient – no, it doesn’t mean friends. It’s a name I coined for my ship, in a computer game about the age of discovery (by Koei if I’m not mistaken) in the 80’s or 90’s, …ya, it’s that long ago. Yeah, I was a seafaring explorer and badass colonial overlord! Furient comes from Fury, which I tried to make to sound powerful. Its sister ship was Rageance, from Rage.

Prahnago – is the name of my country, if I ever become king, heheheh. It’s a corruption of the word Peranakan, straits-born Chinese (i.e. Chinese born in Malaya and Singapore who had more or less adopted Malay customs, in food, clothes and language to some extent).

More photos: -


Justin with his granny and aunt, near the Meydan Racecourse, Dubai


Cousin sis Emily, and her husband Martin, near the Burj Khalifa, on their one night stop in Dubai, en route to Sydney from London


Our niece Karishma, posing with the Burj Khalifa


Justin & Karishma at the Souq Madinat Jumeirah, with the Burj Al Arab in the background


Justin with his other aunt, Kim, at the Ibn Battuta Mall, Dubai

And I think it’s about time I improve my outdated blog, …as lazy as I am, ahem. But don’t expect much. I’ll have to do this by stealing a bit of office time (shhhh…) and my IT skills suck, so if nothing happens, it’s just because I don’t have the friggin time to do it, or I have no clue on how to go about doing it.

Till then, here’re some photos of places outside Dubai…


Justin & Hazel, at the Abu Dhabi Corniche


Justin & his granddad, Abu Dhabi Corniche Beach – it sez photography not allowed for some reason, but why make a beautiful beach and not allow photography?


Anu & Kim at the Abu Dhabi Heritage Village


Finally, how can we have family photos, without a photo of our newest addition? Little Jayden, at the Khor Fakkan Beach, Eastern UAE

Of Picnics & Customer Service

Wadi Tanuf, Oman

What’s Oman without a picnic in the wadis? Here’re pictures of our own wadi trip in Oman in 2013. When it rains, you can be pretty sure to see people heading to the countless wadis (dried river beds) for a splash in the water.

What’s so great about some rain and some water? Well, if you stay in a place where the only things you see are sand, dust, sandstorms, rocks, and more sand (i.e. the Arabian Peninsula), you’ll know how nice a little bit of rain and water can be.

Besides, picnics and road trips have their other plus points. For one, you don’t need to deal with the delightful customer service attitude in Oman (whether in hotels, restaurants, or car rental agencies, …but make sure you bring your own car).

An example. At the car rental booth in the airport on my last official trip.
“Brother, how long is this gonna take? We’ve been waiting here for 20 minutes now”.
Car rental fellow in a threatening tone, “Are you sure it is 20 minutes? How do you know it is 20 minutes”?
“See, I made this call when I arrived at your booth, right after I spoke to you, see the time of the call”.
Fellow: “…I’m busy” (ignoring us, and went back to chatting on the phone).
Didn’t take us so long after that, …only about 20 more minutes, and this was pre-booked, and from an international car rental chain!

On the same official trip, later that night, arriving late at a pre-booked hotel, opened the hotel room with the swipe card and heard a lady screaming. …Shit! Slammed the door shut, and ran the hell away, the check-in clerk gave us the wrong room!! …Maybe, it was just my unlucky day…

Oh, one tip, when going sight-seeing. Stock up on packet food, junk food, whatever (which Anu smartly did). Don’t expect food stalls near tourist attractions, they don’t exist. It’s either packed food, or starve. Your choice.


The road to Wadi Tanuf, with some ruins at the side. We chose an easy wadi due to a lack of time and experience. Get an Oman off-road adventure book in the bookshop for ideas (or check it out at the bookshop if you’re too stingy to buy one, …like us hahaha).


Some ruins near Wadi Tanuf


A submerged road which you can drive across – there’re tons of roads like these in Oman


And can we drive across that? You can try, but I’m pretty sure the rocks will do some serious damage to your car, and get you stuck in the wadi until something comes and pull it up. We walked across.


Papa and Justin at Wadi Tanuf, Oman


Mommy, preparing for a hike


There, papa and son, wading thru water


Waterfall time!